Treatment of cocoa and similar foodstuffs



June 9, 1925.

R. HEAD ET AL TREATMENT OF COCOA AND SIMILAR FOODSTUFFS 1921 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed March 1&3@ mamey Jne 9, 1925.

R. HEAD ET AL TREATMENT OF COCOA AND SIMILAR FOODSI'UFFS 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed March l'? June 9, 1925.

R. HEAD ET AL TREATMENT 0F COCOA AND SIMILAR FOODSTUFF'S Filed March l'7. 1921 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Patented June 9, 1925.

UNITED STATES g1,541,262 rATEN'r oFFICE- RONALD kr-IEAD, or LU'ro'N, AND WrLLrAM EDWARD rnnscorr, or LoNDoN, ENGLAND,

ASSIGNORS T0 JOSEPH BAKER, lS( )l\TS.Al'.\TD PERKINS LIMITEDrOF LONDON, ENG- LAND, A COMPANY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

TREATMENT OF COCOA ANDSIMILAR FOODSTUFFS.

Application mea March 17, 1921.. serial 110.453,092.

To all whom t may concern.'

Y Be it known that we, RONALD` HEAD', mechanical engineer, of Luton, in the county of Bedford, England, and WILLIAM EDWARD Pnnsoorr, engineer, of London, England, both subjects of the King of Great Britain and Ireland, have invented certainl new and useful Improvements in the Treatment of Cocoa and Similar Foodstuffs, of which the Jfollowing is a specication. v

This invention relatesA to the treatment of cocoa and similar food-stuffs and has more particular relation to the treatment of cocoa, wherein it is disintegrated or reduced 1 r to a tine powder 1n a mill by the action ot blades, whilst at'the same time a continuous current of air for cooling, aeratingand ejection purposes is forced through the material.

According to the present invention additional steps and methods of ,treatment are provided in conjunction yor combination with said disintegrating operation and these consist in lirst feeding the cake of material as from a cocoa butter press to a breaker in which it is brokeninto lumps.

From said breaker the lumps are fed as bya conveyor and elevator to theV disintegrating apparatus or mill referred to above, and on leaving same under the action of a current of air as described, the powdered substance passes into a sifting device which may include one or more revolvingy sieves Vor sifting cylinders, or comprise fixed cylinders and rotating beaters, or be of any form desired and which deliver the finished product into a hopper or equivalent from which it is taken away to be suitably dealt with, whilst the tailings pass from the sitting device and are conveyed between grinding rolls for instance of granite or chilled iron by which they are again finely powdered and from which they are passed back to the disintegrating mill for further treatment and amalgamation in a similar manner to that already mentioned.

An embodiment of the invention is illustra-ted in the accompanying drawings, in which Fig. l is a side elevation showing more or less diagrammatically the entire combination of apparatus referred to above; Fig. 2 is a. plan view, and Fig. 3 an end elevation from the left of Fig. 1. In Figs. 2 and 3 certain parts illustrated in Fig. 1 have been'omitted for clearness of illustration. v

There is no specific novelty in either the disintegrating `mill, the sifting device, or the breaker, all these being of any appropriate or known construction, the invention residing in the particular combination and rarrangement ofl lthe various parts,

which co-operate in the manner previously stated.

The apparatus comprises iirstly a breaker' a, shown merely in outline, for the reason that it may suitably be of the construction disclosed in the application No. 396734, tiled 10th July, 1920, to which reference is directed` for a full description. The material, for example cocoa, is ted in lumps or cakes as from a cocoa butter press to said breaker, as at a3l and after treatment therrin is delivered to a worm conveyor 79 working in a trough c which extends along the base of the apparatus and which delivers the-material to an elevator or bucket conveyor cl located in a vertical casing e. The material is carried by said elevator 'flto the top of the apparatus and discharged from thel buckets of the elevator into a chute j' which delivers it into a hopper g forming part of a conical disintegrating mill t. The material is fed into said mill by means of the hopper g and then carried into a sifting device Such device is also of substantially known form and comprises an open ended cylinder 7c in the form of a sieve, disposed in a casing Z having a discharge chute m and containing beaters n which are rotated within the cylinder to force the material through the meshes oi the cylinder. The finely divided material which passes through the wall of the surrounding cylinder is delivered by the chute` m to the outlet 0 where it is collected by any convenient means and dealt with as desired.

The tailings, if any, from the cylinder Zz pass out at the right hand end thereof to a chute j?, by which they are delivered to a pair of grinding rollers g, these rollers being appropriately of granite or chilled iron, and by which the tailings are ground to a tine state of division and delivered again to the worm conveyor b, which in turn passes them to the elevator d and thence through the mill 71, and sifting device j, the process being repeated as often as may be necessary.

Any appropriatemeans for driving the various elements constituting the combination o't apparatus described may be adopted. As shown in the drawings the breaker a is driven separately as by pulley al. The elevator d is driven from .pulley (Z1 through bevel-gear cl2 and at the base of the elevator other bevel-gear b1 is arranged through which shaft b2 drives gearing b3 for actuating the Worm-conveyor b. The mill 7L is driven independently from pulley h1 and the rotary beaters nin sifting cylinder are driven from a shaft nl through pulley n2. From shaft nl belt gear and pulleys g, g1 and g2 drive one of the rollers g, which is geared, through spur gear g3 to the other roller of the pair in the known manner.

The mill h. is shown as carried by a bracket h2 supported from the casing 7a3 of the sitter,

but .it may be otherwise mounted as desired.

By the combination and arrangement of devices as above described We are enabled to carry out a substantially continuous process of breaking, disintegrating and sifting With re-treatment ot the tailings in a unitary apparatus, the Whole occupying a minimum of time and space and resulting in an economical and labour saving operation vvith greatly improved product.

It will be obvious that with certain materials, it may not be necessary to irst break same or to retreat the tailings, and from this point of vien7 the invention may be regarded asia method and means for the combined disintegration and sifting only of the materials dealt With.

Vhat We claim as our invention and desire tosecure by Letters Patent of the United States is 1. An apparatus for treating cocoa and similar food stuis comprising a breaker in which the material is first reduced, a disintegrating mill embodying means for producing a current of air on the material under treatment, conveying means for transferring the material from vthe breaker to the disintegrating mill, a sifting device into which the material treated in the mill is delivered by said air current, means for grinding tailings from the sifting device, and means for delivering the said tailings back to the disintegrating mill for further treatment.

2. An apparatus for treating cocoa and similar food stuffs comprising a breaker in which the material is first reduced, a disintegrating mill embodying means for ,producing a current of air on the material under treatment therein, Worm and bucket conveyors for transferring the material from the breaker to said disintegrating mill, a sitting device into Whiclrthe material treated in the mill is delivered by said air current, and means for grinding tailings from the sifting device, said tailings being delivered from the grinding means to the aforesaid worm conveyor and subsequently to the bucket conveyor for passage back to the disintegrating mill for further treatment.

In Witness whereof we have signed this specification in the presence of tivo Witnesses.

RONALD HEAD. VILLIAM EDlVAR-D PRESCOTT.

litnesses MABEL E. MARTIN, Eva HAZEL. 

